


Drain Away

by uumuu



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alternate Universe, Developing Relationship, F/M, Female Fëanor, Gender or Sex Swap, No Sex, Parent/Child Incest, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-04
Updated: 2015-04-04
Packaged: 2018-03-20 10:11:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3646353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/uumuu/pseuds/uumuu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Finwë and Fëanor love each other too much, and hurt each other even more.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Drain Away

A trail of incense rose from the burner which stood next to the vase filled with tiger lilies, on the small round table in the middle of the room. The fragrance was light, a whiff of earthy freshness to temper the cloying scent of the flowers. Finwë had ordered the best ones, the lushest ones. Some of their large, sheeny petals were still dotted with dew, and from a distance they looked like gleaming stars of fire floating in a foggy dimness.

Outside, rain pattered gently on the pomegranate trees in full bloom. He had had them planted there for Míriel, but Míriel had been able to admire their frothy blossoms for only a short time. Now Fëanor stood next to the window, in those rooms he had refused to give to Indis, and stared at them unblinking. She had just emerged from the bathroom, wearing naught but a gown made of sheer black silk, after a day spent working uninterruptedly in the forges of the Royal Palace. He had hurried to her rooms as soon as the attendant tasked with tracking her had warned him that she had retired. 

He watched her. His eyes followed her profile, stronger than Míriel's, the sharp angle of her arms crossed over her chest, every minute curve and plane of her body clearly outlined against the muted light from the window. Without the sash tied tightly around her breasts to flatten them, it was revealed in its true splendour.

“You've grown to be such a beautiful woman,” he said, reverently, the words leaving his mouth unbidden as he indulged in his contemplation.

Fëanor turned towards him with her brow furrowed, abruptly wrested from somber thoughts. “A man, you mean. You wrote Fëanáro, remember?”

Finwë flinched and lowered his eyes in tacit admission, and in guilt. He had. He had her raised as a boy, with the help of the midwife who had assisted at her birth, and Rúmil who had been her tutor. He had, but he had never stopped considering her his daughter. She traversed the airy morning room – Míriel had not liked narrow spaces – coming to sit next to him on the divan. 

Finwë took the flask which had been left on the side table, and uncapped it, pouring the unguent on the palm of his left hand. 

“...I wanted to protect you,” he said, while applying the unguent to Fëanor's blistered hands. 

Fëanor's hands were not the delicate hands of a lady, weren't slender and soft as were Findis', nor slightly calloused as Indis', but were the swollen, coarse, perpetually stained hands of any craftsman. Finwë smeared the salve around every finger, and over her wrists up her bare arms. A tingly contentment spread through him the closer he was to her, the more he touched her. He hadn't seen her in so long, and after every protracted absence, his adoration became more thorough, and more uncontrolled. He pined for her when she was away. He was elated whenever he knew she would return. Once she arrived in Tirion, he set aside all other matters, however grave, to spend as much time with her as she would allow. 

His fervour was not lost on her.

“What do you see when you look at me?” she asked, while his hands caressed her right shoulder, sliding under her gown. “Do you see your heir?” Finwë was startled by her voice. He stopped and pulled back, as if waking from a dream. “Do you see Mother?” Fëanor pressed. Finwë raised his head, and she waited until his eyes were level with hers. “...or do you perhaps simply see somebody you want to fuck?”

Finwë exhaled loudly. A cool breeze wafted in from the slightly open window, sprinkling raindrops on the panes, and the windowsill. It made him shiver, and he realised exactly how hot he was. 

“I- I-” he stuttered, “I see you.”

Fëanor sat up, leaning towards him. “And _what_ am I to you?” 

Finwë tore his gaze away from hers and busied himself with the short, thin strips of cotton meant to bandage her fingers. “You are-...” Fëanor tugged on his shoulder and he was forced to look her in the eye again. “You -” he bent to kiss her hands. “Nárië, mírenya. I love you,” he vowed at last. 

It was paltry blandishment, an easy way out. Fëanor hated it whenever her father said those words. Her first reaction was always a bitter wrath, but it never lasted long, because she craved them at the same time, and was incapable of resisting the emotion with which her father uttered them. 

“...and I do love you, Father...of course.” 

“Then please...please, spend more time with me,” Finwë pleaded, clenching his hands around her wrists. 

Fëanor shook her head. “You know why I can't be here too often.”

“Please. We could be together...just the two of us! We could go to my hunting lodge. Please...I need you. Every time you are gone I feel-...I feel lost, every day is bleaker than this rain, and nowhere as desirable. I need you to feel joy.”

“Really? Don't you have Indis for that?” Fëanor snapped, spite turning her voice into vitriol. She made a feeble attempt to pull away, but Finwë held her firmly. “She is proof that there is healing in Aman, isn't she? She has given you one more daughter now. A daughter who won't have to hide her femininity, pretending to be a man _for her own good_.” Fëanor knew that her condition would have been much worse if her real sex had been known. She would have been a high princess but not a heiress, a lauded, prized, and impotent decoration like the lilies on the table. A dainty leftover of the dead queen. Nonetheless, the ambiguity to which Finwë's choice had condemned her tore at her. “Will you find me a wife?” she taunted, catching the spark of jealousy in her father's eyes. “But that is impossible, is it not?...I shall be a childless heir, while Indis's precious Aracáno will sire your grandchildren.”

“That does not signify,” Finwë contended. “I love them, but I will never love them as much as you.”

“You said that to Mother too, didn't you? Didn't you vow to love her in every circumstance, every way?”

“No!” Fëanor's brow instantly creased, and Finwë faltered. His cheeks burned. “I mean, I did. But-...I love you more than her.”

Her father often resorted to professions of love, but it was the first time he put her above her own mother. She freed her arms from his hold and lifted her hands to cup his face. Their thighs were pressed together. She leant in, enough that Finwë felt her breath on his own lips when she next spoke. 

“How much do you love me?” 

“I-...I don't know,” he lied, squirming in her hold. There was too much ardour in it, and it crawled on his skin from the spots her hands touched through his whole body. “But you are everything to me. Seeing you is more beatific than seeing the light.”

“What about touching me?”

“That-...I just want to have you close.”

“You've not just been staring at me,” Fëanor insisted. “Are you afraid to love me?”

“...sometimes, yes. You are my child, and Míriel -”

Fëanor's face fell and she shot up, striding to stand before a chest of drawers with her back to her father. Finwë heaved a deep sigh. His adoration had threatened to overspill. He regained control of himself, and rose in turn. 

“Will you ever forgive me?”

Fëanor scoffed. That was one more of her father's easy evasions. “I wouldn't be here if I hadn't. And didn't you just say you love me more than anybody else?”

“I do. I always have.”

“I wish you had acted more like it when I was a child,” Fëanor glumly said, opening one of the drawers to retrieve a clean sash. “I wish you were more honest now. ...it can't be helped can it? You're a coward.”

She handed her father the sash, wordlessly commanding him to tie it again for her.

*

Fëanor was nowhere to be found the next morning. Her rooms were empty, and the bed was pristine. Nobody had seen _him_ at the forges. Finwë harshly rebuked the attendant for failing to properly watch over _him_. The man bowed in mortification, and vowed to do his best to find the High Prince, but all his searches were unsuccessful.

After lunch, Finwë shuffled dejectedly to her rooms, half resigned to the fact that she had apparently left again. Her belongings were all still strewn about the apartment, but Fëanor didn't care about travelling comfortably, or about the trinkets associated with a Prince's status. Finwë looked over the jumbled collection of personal items, found the gown she had worn the previous evening and hugged it to himself. He sunk his face into it, and inhaled, but he only perceived a faint smell of soap and the overriding perfume of the tiger lilies. When he at last drew close to the window, he saw footprints on the windowsill and on the grass below. His heart leapt in his chest. 

The garden which surrounded Míriel’s apartment had been built on a series of terraces facing towards the Calacirya. It was a safe haven. The only accesses to it were a door in Fëanor's bedroom, and a narrow bridge linking it to the balcony which opened behind the royal bedroom. 

Finwë took off the ceremonial robe he still wore from the morning's audiences, and climbed over the windowsill and down into the garden. 

He spotted Fëanor sitting under one of the trees. She glanced up when she heard him approach, but didn't stop what she was doing. Finwë for his part refrained from speaking, afraid to further vex her if she was angry. 

When he was sufficiently close, he could see that she was working on a piece of lace, using the yarn left in abundance in her mother's chests. He sat beside her, still silent, on the still damp grass. Tiny raindrops fell from the pomegranate flowers like diffident tears. 

After a while, he tentatively put a hand to her cheek, half-hidden behind by her raven hair. She didn't recoil, didn't push him away, so he moved it up and combed the hair away from her face, revealing puffy eyes, from both weeping and sleeplessness.

“Nárië” he called tenderly, and felt her shiver.

She had been acting like an adult since a very early age. She already had more accomplishments to her name than anybody else, of her age or older. She tried to appear unbreakable, but she was still only 60, and much more fragile than anybody else. Finwë knew that that fragility was his fault, that he had wounded her, and that nothing he could do would repair the damage. Sometimes he wished he could go back in time and not marry Indis, or, even better, not leave for Valinor at all.

“Nárië please, don't be sad,” he implored.

Her face contorted into a grimace. “Why, because it makes you feel bad?” She had wanted to sound scathing, but tears stung her burning eyes again, and her voice wobbled. “You ask me to love you, to be with you, but all I get in return is hurt.”

“I'm sor-”

“Don't say you're sorry! You can't be sorry. You _expect_ my love, but you won't take responsibility for it.”

Finwë didn't respond in words – she was right, and he wasn't that much of a hypocrite – but he drew her into his arms, and no matter how much he had hurt her and continued to hurt her, she cuddled on his chest. 

“...let's spend the day together tomorrow. I will cancel all my meetings.” The Vanyarin embassy could wait. 

Fëanor didn't have the strength to get angry at one more sop. Getting her father's undivided attention for one day was better than nothing, and she could make the most of it. “Upon one condition,” she said.

Finwë felt an onset of trepidation, but mumbled his assent.

“Two, actually. I don't want to see any of your servants, especially the one who constantly tails me.”

“...all right.” 

“And you will have to stay with me the whole time, from the mixing tomorrow morning to the one on the following day...I want to go to the gardens in the lower town in the morning, and ride out in the afternoon. After dinner, we'll be in my rooms.”

A chill shiver ran down Finwë's spine, but he closed his eyes, and nodded.

**Author's Note:**

> This is a longer take on the scenario outlined in Spilled Milk, which I hope to continue in the future. 
> 
> Mírenya = my jewel. Nárië is a sort of nickname for female Fëanor I like to use, it's just the word for fire with a feminine ending.
> 
> Many thanks to Macalaure on tumblr for their feedback on this story.


End file.
